Happy IS
by Lanhar
Summary: Mark reflects on happiness when his documentary is published.


**AN: ** I don't own Rent, I don't own Wicked, nor the characters and songs borrowed from either.

This is another little Mark one shot that draws from a song in Wicked.

Reviews feed the muse, and cheer me up!

"_Happy is what happens when all your dreams come true" _

Looking at the package in his hands Mark had to wonder if he was happy.

It was a film.

It had his name on it.

It was _his_ film.

He made it.

He produced it,

shot it

wrote it.

It was his.

And yet…

Looking at it didn't make him feel the pride he thought he would feel.

It didn't make him exited, or thrilled in an all encompassing way that he had always imagined this moment would bring. It gave him a peace, and an odd weight lifted off my shoulders feel. And sure there was some happiness, but nothing like what he had dreamed.

Nothing.

_"'Cuz getting your dreams,_

its _strange but it seems, _

_a little well,_

_ complicated.' _

The ocean was on the wrong side now.

The sun shone to brightly, the colors to overpowering.

The people too tan and too blond, and oddly too thin.

Which is strange to say after Roger's bleached look days. But then he was never that tan, and wore eyeliner. And the thinness they lived as starvation was common, but real. Maybe that was the difference.

The ocean even _looked_ wrong here. People swam in it, it was clearer. Something was different, vibrant and fake at the same time.

He missed the noise, the smog, the beggars and the snow.

It wasn't the same in his condo as it was in the loft.

At least here there was heat, or air conditioning. He had a car, a yard.

He even had a wife and a baby girl. He had a full life, he had a happy life.

Family, friends. Money, a small bit of fame. Wasn't that always the goal?

_ "There's a kind of a sort of a cost, _

_there's a couple of things get lost..."_

But he had lost so much, so many people.

Most all of them in this film in his hands.

Maybe that's why he hated it so much.

He lost the friends to get his one great film.

If he was honest, he would lose all of it. The condo, the cars, the life on the west coast, for one more night in that frozen loft before April and drugs, before AIDS and landlords and hospitals. One more night dreaming of glory instead of having it.

Today 4U was done. The full documentary of the starving artists and AIDS in New York. It was part of a line that would tell the tale of a young America struggling to identify itself. It would chronicle the disease, the downfall of social services and the bias of employers to people of alternative lifestyles.

It was everything they lived,

and everything they died.

And he hated it as much as he loved it.

Roger would say it was selling out that he had to finish the film in California.

Collins would say it was destined to be under appreciated until he was dead.

April would say it took him far to long to make.

Mimi would laugh that she was in it at all.

Angel would smile and dance while she watched them all do the same on screen.

Benny would say it was possible to have made a better deal.

Maureen would point out that she was the reason he got the original film on the air.

Joanne would congratulate him for a job well done.

And then Roger would hug him, laugh and tell him the music was the best part.

He had used Roger's songs to highlight the action. It was Roger's music that gave the piece heart and soul.

And that was all that was left of Roger, and Collins and Mimi, Angel and April. The heart and soul of the film was found when their lives expired. The ending a fading shot of the grave line, the row of tombs that was all that marked where his friends now lay. The tombs with Maureen, Joaane and their twins standing, backs to the camera looking down at them.

All he had now of their fire, was held in this film. This film that summed the Golden Years of his life.

" _And if that Joy that Thrill, doesn't thrill like you think it will… _

_Still…"_

He was standing there in his tuxedo, on a stage. Millions watching him accept an award for documentary of the year. He looked at the golden statue in his hands and then out at the people.

He was thrilled,

he made it.

This was his moment.

It was glory.

It was what he had always dreamed of.

And then he looked for familiar faces in the crowed, and missing the ones that had dreamt with him, he felt tears prick his eyes.

"There is a musical on Broadway now that a friend of mine is in. Her co-star sings a song about happiness. That's what comes to me now as I stand here to accept this award. I should be able to tell you I couldn't be happier, that all of this is what I dreamed of when I started this project as the starving artist that narrates so much of it. But in truth there are so many people I lost to get here that will never see their impact on the world.

I guess in this instant, knowing they can't be here, I couldn't be happier in this world, as it is. So I couldn't be happier. But in the back of my mind those bridges I passed without them, and knowing that if they could be here, if they had lived, I would be happier dampens the moment some.

This is for the starving artists. It's for the alternative lifestyles and the downtrodden. The kids fighting against their parents to be who they know they are, not who their parents tell them to be. It's for nights freezing in a leaking loft, and summers spent with no air conditioning and faulty water pumps. To living La Vie Boheme." He had tears in his eyes as he finished. He looked to the ceiling, picturing those faces looking down at him. "To April, Angel, Collins, Mimi, Roger and my friends still fighting today. To my wife and daughter, for putting up with an eccentric film maker for so long, for being my reason for living past this film. To those who inspired me, who pushed me, and who sustained me. Thank you to the academy for this award. I couldn't be happier." And he left the stage.

His wife had tear marks on her face when he made it back to his seat.

In New York a Broadway Star and her Lawyer wife had tears streaming down their faces as their adopted twins looked on, sadden but not quite understanding what was going on. Pride for the Uncle beaming in their eyes, even with unshed tears to match their mothers graced their teen faces as the foursome watched the awards on TV several time zones away.

"_With this perfect finale, the cheers and the ballyhoo_

_Who wouldn't be happier?_

_So I couldn't be happier….."_

He placed the award and a copy of the film in an old beat up cabinet in his workshop. He smiled at it, and the photos displayed around it.

He went to sleep with a grin on his face that night as his wife slid her arms around him. Voices whispered in his sleep of a job well done. But that ache in his heart, that void once filled with a family, would only throb with emptiness not quite filled by this accomplishment. They could not be replaced by a film, but their dreams were a burden he no longer carried.

"_Because happy is what happens _

_when all your dreams come true……_

_Well, isn't it?"_


End file.
